She's Not There Anymore
by Halfcent
Summary: Scott has trouble coping with Allison being gone.


**She's Not There Anymore**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf, sadly.**

It was two weeks after Allison's funeral that Scott saw it. How he'd forgotten that it was there he would never be able to answer. But there it was, back-lit brightly, staring up at him from his phone. Allison's phone number.

 _Out of sight, out of mind_ , Scott mused. It was funny how, even when someone was gone forever to the one place they could never be reached again, little things that belonged to them remained behind. What wasn't funny was how it could feel like an arrow to the chest when one of those little tidbits presented itself innocently.

Scott distinctly remembered removing Allison's speed dial icon from his cell phone's home screen shortly after their breakup.

They had still been friends. Isn't that what always happened? 'Let's be friends?' He'd done it in a private moment of pique. He'd seen her reach for Isaac's hand and had experienced a rare jolt of something unpleasant. He'd allowed himself that very momentary tantrum. He hadn't wanted to see her name staring at him every time he looked at his phone, so he'd removed the nuisance.

But even though he'd removed her from his home screen, it was only because Scott knew that was barely symbolic. Allison was still a part of his life. She had to be.

So how had he forgotten that her phone number was still in his phone?

Mindlessly scrolling through his contacts to find the name of his newly assigned study partner in science class quickly resulted in Scott's world screeching to a halt in mere seconds when Allison's name flicked through with all the others.

Scott couldn't describe his descent after that. He became obsessed with staring at her name. At first, that was all he could do. Hundreds of times a day he'd flip his phone to his contact list to see Allison right near the top. Waiting, it almost seemed.

He'd stare. He'd regret. He'd imagine that she was on the other end waiting. It became a ritual, almost. His special and solitary talisman.

But pretty soon that wasn't enough. One day, as he stared at her name...the hundredth time that day? The three-hundredth?...it just wasn't enough.

That night, as he lay in bed missing her more than ever, he tapped her name. The very last texts they'd exchanged were there and it felt like a physical blow. A physical blow with a soothing epicenter. Bittersweet.

For two days, Scott read and reread months of texts between the Allison and himself. Some of them brought back fear. Those texts were short and efficient. Finalizing plans to defeat some creature or bad guy. Checking in to make sure the other was still alive. Quick disagreements about whether a terrorizing presence was evil enough to put down or whether it was redeemable enough to be saved.

But others...others were better. When they'd said goodnight to each other. When they'd told jokes. When they'd petty-argued because they knew there were going to make up the next day.

When they'd said 'I love you'.

It was like a script that he already knew but had forgotten. Had their words been written on paper, they would have crumbled apart within days. It wasn't long before Scott had every word, every memory of 'send', sealed in his brain. He could read it in his dreams, and he did. He woke often from the special message tone he'd ascribed to Allison's incoming texts ringing in his ears only to sit up and see his cell phone dark and silent on his nightstand.

As before, reading the familiar words over and over again ceased to be enough. That feeling that Allison was waiting just on the other end began to grow again. Just a mild notion at first. But it grew to something just short of compulsion.

One night, after a long fight with painful injuries and fading fear, Scott could no longer bear just to read their texts. He no longer had to. He had every single word committed to memory. The soothing balm that the passages used to be was losing its effectiveness. He needed more.

This time he sent her a text. It was short and simple.

 **Allison. Are you there?**

He felt almost foolish as he hit send, but that was immediately replaced by expectation. All night he stared at his silent phone on the nightstand.

She wasn't there. Of course she wasn't there. He knew that. But oh, how he wanted her to be.

Scott wasn't sure what he expected to happen. He knew he was playing a game. A painful, destructive game that left scars that no one else could see. But he wasn't delusional. He knew deep down what to expect.

And that's exactly what Scott got. Nothing.

But that didn't deter him. He added her speed dial icon back to his home screen. For three nights Scott asked for Allison's presence on the other end and pretended that just once she might answer. But on the fourth night, a night of rain-washed blood in the streets and two dead high classmates that Scott knew, somehow, were on his shoulders because he is the True Alpha of Beacon Hills, Scott didn't wait for a reply. He didn't want one, because it was easier to talk, to sob, to cry into a darkness where there was no one to hear.

It helped to pretend that Allison was there to listen to him, but it helped, even more, to know that she wasn't.

He told her the jokes he heard from Stiles every day. He sent her pictures himself, Stiles and Lydia. He told her about Liam and his struggles. He complained about his classes, bragged about his successes, shared his worry over his mom, mentioned anecdotes from Deaton, made fun of the Coach Finstock and agonized over decisions, all into the ether with Allison's name.

One night without thinking, Scott ended a particularly emotional day with

 **God, I wish I could hear your voice one more time.**

The next morning, as Scott texted Allison a good morning, he realized that maybe, just maybe, he could.

It took him so long to work up the courage that he was still sitting on his bed, cell phone in hand, long after when he should have been in school.

Then he took a deep breath and hit the call button.

The phone to his ear, Scott held his breath. His heart pounded through two rings, three rings, four rings, five.

After the fifth ring, as Scott closed his eyes in anticipation, that tell-tale click.

" _Hi, this is Allison. You've just missed me, but_ …"

Scott wasn't prepared for that arrow in his heart to twist so cruelly. It stole his breath and squeezed his lungs.

There was nothing bittersweet about this. It was too painful, too raw, too much Allison in a space where she should have been but existed no longer.

Yet he did it again and again. Scott had had a toothache once, before his werewolf days. He hadn't had it long before his mom hauled him to the dentist, but he'd found the sudden sharp pains and the deeper ache to be oddly addictive. He didn't find it pleasant, but he couldn't resist poking at it over and over.

That was what hearing her voice again was like.

It twisted deeper each time but he kept coming back for more. He felt like he was ripping a band-aid off over and over, only instead of finding the relief of the quick pain over with, he instead found a wound that went deeper and deeper each time.

It was the most excruciating thing he'd ever experienced and he couldn't stop doing it to himself.

When it ended, it was sudden and unexpected.

Scott's morning call did not end with him gasping to contain the pain when he heard Allison's voice. It ended in silence. The other end of the line rang seven times instead of the usual five and then just...stopped. Dead air, and then a click.

Panic filled Scott's chest where the ache had been moments before. He had no prepared for things to change so abruptly and his current state did not leave room for logical conclusions.

He speed-dialed Allison's number again. And then again and again with the same result each time. With every call, Scott was more frantic as he waited anxiously, counting off to the fifth ring only for his heart to rise into his throat when Allison's voicemail did not answer. He always hung up before the sixth ring was complete, eager to speed-dial again.

And then something happened. Before he could dial once more, Allison's special message tone sounded. Scott froze in disbelief before his shaking fingers could open up the incoming text.

 **Hello? Who is this?**

Scott had to take several deep breaths before he could coherently form a reply.

 **Sorry. I was trying to reach a friend.** There. That wasn't a lie and it didn't make him sound crazy.

 **Oh, OK. I think you have the wrong number. This is my new number, I just got it today.**

How had he not realized that eventually Allison's number would be recirculated? Scott shook his head and licked dry lips. He wasn't sure what to do, how to respond. Allison's phone number had been an almost-tangible part of her lingering behind. The only thing left of her that Scott could grab onto. The idea of losing that last small bit of Allison that had hung around felt almost as crushing as losing her the first time.

 **Sorry again,** was all Scott could think of to reply.

 **No problem :)** , the mystery texter answered. **By the way, my name is Kira**. **Might as well let you know who you're talking to!**

Scott smiled, in spite of himself. A smiley emoji? An exclamation mark at the end of an ordinary sentence? Who else could this person be but a teenage girl?

 **Hi Kira** , Scott answered with a sigh. **My name is Scott.**

 _Kira_ , Scott mused. He heaved another sigh that felt both heavy and cleansing. He was losing something precious and it hurt. It hurt all over again. But at the same time, it felt like an end to a bad dream. Scott had been stuck in a cycle of emotional destruction that he had been unable to put the brakes on and even on his best days he had feared how far it might go. Even as he fought tears, Scott breathed a shuddery breath that contained more things than he could name but blinked his eyes at the first moment of real clarity he'd experienced in weeks.

Taking a stalwart breath to brace himself, Scott brought up Allison's contact information and deleted her name slowly, letter by letter.

Fingers numb, taking a moment to steady his breath once more, just as slowly as he'd deleted the letters of Allison's name, he added K-i-r-a.

Her number was still there, but it wasn't Allison.

Allison wasn't there anymore.

A/N: I'm aware I have taken liberties (or what I like to call, artistic license) about how and when Scott and Kira met. It wasn't planned, but that's the way it worked out and I like. So there.


End file.
